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., NOV 26 W^ 

INTERVENTION IN CUBA. 



PRAISE FOR McKINLEY'S ATTITUDE AND 
EFFORTS. 



Judge Phelps, former Minister to Eng- 
land, discusses the question— its 
International Aspects. 



[Froin TJie New York Herald.] 

Former Minister to England, E. J. Phelps, has sent the 
following letter on the Cuban question to former Gov- 
ernor Levi P. Morton: 

To THE Hon. Levi P. Morton: 

My Dear Sir. — My views in respect to the Cuban situ- 
ation, for w^hich you do me the honor to ask, are quite at 
your service. 

Until the report of the Board of Inquiry was received it 
was not easy to know with certainty how far the situation 
might be complicated by facts or questions arising out of 
the disaster to the Maine. But as no complicity on the 
part of Spain in that calamity is found to exist, that 
branch of the subject may be for the present dismissed. 

Whether a claim on the part of the United States Gov- 
ernment for reparation from Spain on the ground of neg- 
ligence may arise need not now be considered. Such a 
claim, if made, wnll be matter for diplomatic discussion, or 
would be the proper subject of settlement by arbitration; 
since the termination of a disputed question of fact de- 
pending upon evidence can only take place in that way, 



:ps'5 



and forms, in my judgment, almost the only case in which 
international arbitration is likely to be useful. 

That grave subject being for the present, at least, taken 
out of the way, the time has now arrived when the pro- 
posal that the United States Government shall go to war 
with Spain can be discussed upon its merits. The country 
appears to be drifting into such a war, chiefly through the 
exertions of those who have an interest in bringing it to 
pass, and the excitement, groundless but contagious, 
which they have succeeded in creating. 

It is not to be believed that the general intelligence of the 
American people, of that majority which can be reckoned 
in weight as well as in numbers, is in favor of any unneces- 
sary war, and still less of one that is to be brought on by 
an attack upon a weak and friendly neighbor, and one 
that cannot be justified under any principles that regulate 
the intercourse of nations. Before engaging in such an 
enterprise it may be well for us to consider what those 
principles are, so far as applicable to the present case, and 
how far we are bound by them. 

NATION MUST OBSERVE PRINCIPLE. 

There seems to be an impression among unreflecting 
people that wiiat is called international law is merely a 
scholastic science, of no practical importance, and to 
which Americans are quite superior. They do not per- 
ceive that it is as impossible for a nation to make a law 
for itself in its relations with other countries as it is for 
an individual to do so in respect to his own conduct in 
the community in which he lives. 

The fundamental principles of international law^ have 
been established by the general concurrence of civilized 
and Christian nations, because found by long experience 
to be both just and indispensable. Hence, they derive 
even a higher sanction than always attends the law that 
is enacted by Legislatures or promulgated by judges. 

Every Government is alike bound by these principles, 
for the sake of its own protection as well as for that of 
others and the general peace, and is under an implied 



covenant with mankind to observe them. If a nation de- 
parts from them it violates this agreement, sets itself 
against the enlightened opinion of the world, does what 
is universally conceded to be wrong and establishes the 
dangerous precedent which, sooner or later, with unfail- 
ing certainty, will come home to itself. No nation can 
afford to take such a course. 

THE LIMITS OF INTERVENTION. 

Among the rules of conduct that have thus become im- 
perative none are more clearly defined than those which 
limit the right of military intervention by one nation in 
the internal affairs of another— certainly the most im- 
portant and delicate of all questions that can arise in 
international concerns, for it involves the peace of the 
world. 

These rules are not new^, for they have been long settled, 
and not doubtful, for they are universally acquiesced in. 
It is the general agreement of mankind, instructed by 
experience which the world cannot afford to see rejected, 
that has established the proposition that no cause what- 
ever, except the necessary self-defense of a nation's ma- 
terial interests or of the national honor, which is its 
highest interest, can justify forcible interference in the 
affairs of another country with which it is at peace. 

The proffer of mediation or of friendly assistance may 
always be made. It may be accepted or declined by the 
government to which it is addressed. But when declined 
the attempt to intervene by force of arms is a crime, the 
sad and bitter consequences of which have been demon- 
strated on many a page of history. And especially and 
above all does this apply to the case of interference in aid 
of an armed rebellion against another government by its 
citizens. 

The idea that this country or any other is justified in 
undertaking a moral or political supervision over the af- 
fairs of its neighbors and in correcting by armed invasion 
the faults of their institutions or the mistakes of their ad- 



ministration, or administering charity to them by force, is 
absolutely inadmissible and infinitely mischievous. 

WHAT JUST GROUNDS APPEAR. 

In the light of these considerations, let us inquire upon 
what grounds it is claimed that we ought to intervene in 
the affairs of Spain in the island of Cuba, and precisely 
what will " intervention " turn out to mean. 

Spain is a friendly nation, and always has been. The 
most industrious agitator for war has been unable to hunt 
up in any history since, under Spanish auspices, this 
country was first opened to us by Columbus, any cause of 
quarrel between us. She has not attacked us, is not pro- 
posing to attack us, and is virtually incapable of it. She 
has manifested every desire and made every effort to avoid 
hostilities, which, to her, as she well knows, must be 
calamitous. She is struggling with a rebellion against 
her government in Cuba, thus far without success, for the 
seat of the conflict is more than three thousand miles 
from the mother country, and the military genius that 
might have terminated it has not yet appeared among her 
generals. 

But the rebellion would long ago have perished from 
exhaustion had it not been supported and supplied by 
continual expeditions from this country, in violation of 
our own neutrality laws and treaty obligations. Our 
Government has not, it is true, countenanced these ex- 
peditions, and has made some efforts to suppress them, 
sincere, no doubt, but always ineffectual, through United 
States marshals who have usually arrived at the wharves 
from which the vessels sailed soon after their departure. 
A twentieth part of the naval force which we are now 
ransacking the world to collect for what are called "the 
purposes of National defense " would have put an end to 
the only source from which the rebellion has been kept 
alive. 

THE MATTER OF LIABILITY. 

It has been claimed by some of the advocates of w^ar 
that Spain must be held i-esponsible to us for the loss of 



the Maine, whether her Government is to hlanie for it or 
not. This proposition they will find it difficult to support. 
But if even her negligence were the cause of the disaster, 
her liability is questionable. 

Does it occur to these gentlemen, that the rule they in- 
voke works in either aspect of the case both ways? If 
Spain must guarantee the safety of our ships in her ports, 
whether herself in fault or not, we must equally guaran- 
tee to her that armed expeditious to subvert her Govern- 
ment shall not be fitted out and dispatched from ours. 
And if negligence in the one case is the criterion of lia- 
bility, it must be equally so in the other. 

We recovered $15,000,000 from Great Britain for the 
depredations of the Alabama, only built, not armed, 
manned or fitted out in that country on the ground that 
her Government was not vigilant enough in preventing the 
sailing of the vessel. Is it to be doubted that a much 
stronger case of negligence could be made out before a 
tribunal of arbitration against our Government in respect 
to these expeditions? 

SELF-DEFENCE NOT INVOLVED. 

In this quarrel between Spain and her rebel subjects, 
without reference to its merits, and conceding to the in- 
surgents all the virtues which are supposed to attend re- 
bellion against constituted government except when it at- 
tacks our own, have we in the first place any interest of 
our own that justifies interference under the right of self- 
defence? 

That claim was at first put forth on the score of the in- 
terruption of our commerce, but it has been abandoned. 
It is too well settled to admit of dispute that the incon- 
venience and loss suffered by the commerce of neutral 
States when war exists, though often considerable, con- 
stitute no ground for intervention, but must be borne. 
The loss of Great Britain in this respect is much greater 
than ours. 

When in our Civil War the Southern ports were block- 
aded by the Federal fleets very great loss to the com- 



6 

merce of other nations ensued, especially in the important 
staple of cotton. Yet no suggestion of interference by 
those nations on that account arose or would have been 
tolerated. It must be conceded, then, and except by in- 
terested newspapers is conceded, that we are mider no 
necessity of self defence against Spain in any definition of 
the word, nor have we any right to vindicate or wrong to 
redress that entitles us to interpose by arms in support of 
the Cuban rebellion, 

WAR FOR humanity's SAKE. 

The final ground upon which the preachers of aggres- 
sion plant themselves is that we must go to war for hu- 
manity's sake. It has generally been supposed that it 
was for humanity's sake that war is chiefly to be avoided, 
and that the cause of humanity can be in no other way so 
well served. 

It is true that international law recognizes as the sole 
and rare exception to the rule above stated in respect to 
intervention that a nation may interfere where, to prevent 
unjustifiable slaughter and outrage in another country, it 
becomes absolutely necessary. But this exception, which 
has very rarely been acted on, applies only in extreme and 
very clear cases, and has no application whatever to this 
case. 

It is worth a moment's consideration to understand dis- 
tinctly what the demands of " humanity " in the present 
case are, and what they are likely to bring to pass if com- 
plied with. Are they a reason or an excuse? A motive, 
or the pretense that conceals a motive? 

The suffering that it is said we are called upon to re- 
dress by fire and sword is the destitution that has over- 
taken a part of the Cuban people, and which has been 
depicted in the most inflammatory colors. They are 
those who are called the reconcentrados — people whose 
homes, plantations and industries have been destroyed in 
the course of the rebellion, and who are now gathered in 
temporary shelters provided by the Spanish Government. 

How came these people in that condition, and who 



wrought the destruction that brought them to it? They 
are represented to us as a body of patriots who are 
"struggHng for freedom," and whose property and hveli- 
hood have been destroyed in that struggle. If this is true, 
then the reason for our interference in behalf of the rebels 
against their Government is, that they have not suc- 
ceeded, are getting the worst of the contest and are thus 
reduced to distress. 

No one pretends that Spain had not the right to put 
down the rebellion. The complaint is that she has not 
put it down. If these people are to be regarded as rebels, 
and their condition is truly depicted, it w-ould seem that 
it results from their own fault, and that the contest, so 
far as they are concerned, has cotne to an end. Nor can 
it be maintained that any cruelty or outrage is visited 
upon them by the Spanish Government, or that their 
destitution results fiom any other cause than the poverty 
that the civil war has occasioned, as it generally does, and 
the inability of the Government to reheve it fully. 

TREATMENT OF RECONCENTRADOS. 

But this statement of the attitude of these people in 
great part is true. While it is difficult to ascertain the 
exact facts in a case where all the evidence comes from 
one side, and the advocates of that side are their own wit- 
nesses, enough appears to show that their claim must be 
taken without much allowance. 

It cannot be pretended that the reconcentrados have 
been generally engaged in the rebellion, or that a large 
part of them have ever taken the field or fired a shot in 
its support. They are not now prisoners of war, as they 
would be had such been the case, but refugees from the 
ravages of the real insurgents, thrown upon the protec- 
tion of the Spanish Government, under whose orders they 
are thereby brought. 

It is a notorious fact that throughout the war the de- 
vastation of the homes and plantations of these inhab- 
itants has been perpetrated by the rebels who are in arms, 
and who have levied contributions in the way of black- 



mail upon the people so long as they had anything to re- 
spond with. If they had been brothers in arms of the 
rebels, the rebellion might, perhaps, with *their assist- 
ance, have succeeded. They would at least have escaped 
the persecution they have suffered, whatever they might 
have encountered from the Government. 

INTERVENTION, ON WHICH SIDE? 

It is undoubtedly true that the Spanish Government 
has likewise destroyed houses and plantations, and driven 
inhabitants from their homes, in pursuit of what is 
deemed a military necessity, just as in our own Civil War 
Sheridan ravaged the Valley of the Shenandoah and Sher- 
man laid waste Georgia. Such measures are the unhappy 
accompaniment of war, and especially of civil war, and 
those who engage in it must expect its natural conse- 
quences. If the distress caused by these means is a 
ground for intervention, we would feel called upon to in- 
terfere in every rebellion that occurs and does not immedi- 
ately succeed. Though the question would still remain, 
On which side? 

The distinction bptween armed intervention and charity 
is clear enough to be better understood than it is. The 
one is the assertion of a belligerent right, the other the 
voluntary offer of kindness and humanity. 

WHO ARE THE REAL INSURGENTS? 

Who, then, are the real insurgents? They are a body 
of men of uncertain number, who keep out of sight, who 
have no capital, or abiding place, or attempt at organized 
government (unless in a Junta in the City of New York), 
mere guerillas and bandits, who have been carrying on 
what they call warfare by crimes not recognized as war in 
any civilized country; by destroying the homes and in- 
dustries of the people of the island not in ai-ms, until it 
has become a desolation; by blowing up with dynamite 
trains which contained only peaceable travelers, and mur- 
dering in cold blood a Spanish ofificer bearing under a flag 
of truce the offer of autonomy. 



Their force is made up of Cubans, negroes, renegades 
and adventurers of all sorts from the United States and 
elsewhere. Is theirs the cause we ai-e to take up? Can 
it be claimed to be the office of humanity to drive out the 
established government of the island, the only government 
there is there, and to turn over the population to the 
tender mercies of such a band as this? 

What would become in such an event of the reconcen- 
trados? If their voice could be heard, is it conceivable 
that they would desire the establishment of a government 
in the hands of those who have already destroyed their 
substance? Had that been their desire they would long 
ago have joined the rebels. 

If these people are suffering, as no doubt they are, 
whether from their misfortune or their fault, by being 
thus ground between the upper and the nether mill- 
stone, let us continue to relieve them as we have begun 
to do; as we sent relief to famine-stricken Ireland and 
charity to Armenia. If that is what is meant by inter- 
vention, we shall not differ about its propriety. But 
whatever their necessity, it is not to be assuaged by blood- 
shed, or by carrying fresh calamity to them at the expense 
of a greater calamity to ourselves. 

A single million, or a few millions, out of the many 
hundreds that war would cost us, would amply answer 
the purpose, and would gladly be received by Spain, as 
well as by those who need it. Let us put a stop also to 
the expeditions from our country on which the rebellion 
is fed. Let it be understood that we shall not fraternize 
with the banditti who have made Cuba a desolation, and 
the conflict and the crime that have exhausted it will soon 
come to an end. The humanity of peace is better and 
more fruitful than the humanity of war. 

COWARDLY TO ATTACK WEAK SPAIN. 

Another consideration should not be forgotten by Amer- 
icans who have any just pride in their country, and that 
is the cowardly character of an unnecessary attack by this 
great and powerful Government upon a comparatively 



10 

weak and impoverished nation. If we must fight some- 
body for the sake of fighting, let us attack a power which 
can defend itself. If that would not be humanity, it 
would at least be courage. 

Can our people forget, though many of the noisiest 
are too young to remember, the rebellion that we had our- 
selves to contend with thirty years ago? A rebellion not 
carried on by a band of guerillas in the mountains, harass- 
ing and distressing the people whom they Avere profess- 
ing to desire to set free, but a rebellion of many contigu- 
ous States, in favor of which the sentiment of the people 
w^as subtantially unanimous, under a regularly organized 
government, and maintained by methods of legitimate 
warfare, yet not the less a rebellion which it was justifiable 
and necessary to put down, though in doing it indescrib- 
able slaughter, disti'ess and rlestruction were unavoidable. 

What would have been the sentiments of our people if, 
when struggling in the throes of that great war, Spain, 
on the pretense of the inconvenience to her commerce 
with the United States which the blockade of the South- 
ern ports created, and of humanity for the suffering caused 
by the war, had thought proper to interfere by force? 
She had as much commerce with us as we have now^ with 
her. She had a nmch greater interest in peace within 
our borders than we have now" in peace in hers. And she 
could have declaimed, as those who are now urging this 
attack upon her declaim, against the inhumanity of war, 
the infinite suffering it occasions, and the high moral duty 
incumbent upon every nation which wants to fight, to 
interfere by force and compel the United States Govern- 
ment to withdraw its jurisdiction from the Southern 
States. 

Yet it does not seem to be perceived that the same prin- 
ciples of international law apply to us in the present case 
that would have made such an intervention on the part 
of Spain a crime, an invasion and a gross insult, which 
we must have repelled and avenged at any cost and any 
hardship, or have ceased to be regarded among nations as 



For 
binding 



11 

a country which respected itself or was entitled to respect 
from others. 

COUNT WELL THE COST. 

Were the proposed war necessary to our just rights, we 
should not count the cost. When seen to be unnecessary, 
it becomes clear that it is unjustifiable. A moment's con- 
sideration may well enough be given to the consequences 
to ourselves that would follow it. 

In the first place, a derangement of business, now just 
beginning to emerge from a long and ruinous depression, 
and which must affect most deeply every legitimate in- 
dustry and employment that belongs to a time of peace. 
A probable debauching of the currency of the country by 
throwing it on to a silver basis, with all the ills which 
that misfortune would bring in its train. Against this 
the country rose up in the last Presidential election by a 
tremendous effort. 

Is the success then so hardly obtained now to be need- 
lessly thrown away? An enormous expenditure from a 
treasury whose expenses already exceed its income by 
more than $50,000,000 a year; indefinite millions a year 
to be added to the pension list, already in its saturnalia of 
fraud and extravagance, the curse and the shame of the 
country. 

Can we afford all this? What taxation is to pay for it? 
And what have we to gain for it in return? The injury that 
could be inflicted upon us by Spain would be trifling in 
comparison with that which we should inflict upon our- 
selves. In the present condition of our affaii's do we owe 
no duty to our own people? Are there not reconcentrados 
in our own cities, that numberless army unemployed be- 
cause business is checked and paralyzed by these continual 
alarms? 

CUBA LIBRE, WHAT NEXT? 

Are there not thousands of young men, hopeful and 
earnest, who are struggling to establish or maintain some 
lionest business that war would overturn and destroy? Is 
there not a charity which begins at home? 



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